A little while back I got an email from someone who said they were a professional writer and were interested in writing in article for my web site free of charge. I figured they were just looking to expand their resume, of which they included some sample links--they were innocuous articles on a variety of fairly dull topics, but they were at least well written. The email sounded like they were somewhat familiar with my site, so I said well, if it's about something that would interest my readers, I don't see why I wouldn't post it.

I had neglected to read one particular sentence of their email carefully:

Quote:

The good news is that I'd be able to offer my services at no charge; the only thing I would ask in return is that I'm able to include a link to a company I work for within the article.

(I think I must have interpreted that as "include a link to the article for companies I want to work for" or something. Blah.)

So they got back to me with a fairly innocuous article on astrophysics, which is on-topic for my site, but it was so dull I was on the verge of asking them if they had something of more interest, when I noticed an non sequitur in the middle of the article, linking to a site selling insurance for mobile devices, or something. So that was the link they were talking about in that part I'd misread. :P

I told them I wasn't interested in publishing it, and that was that. Hum!_________________

Heh... what I don't understand is how anyone thinks an article on astrophysics will instantaneously inspire an insurance purchase... or really anything... gotta love the bizarre and extremely manipulative advertising methodologies of the brave new web..._________________Ed Womack

For a while there, we were getting an offensively large amount of piano bench spam. Piano benches? Yes, piano benches. We finally uploaded a captcha thing and it has been great.

But yeah, it's wierd how there is a fine line between promoting and spamming. I think the insurance writer in question would have been much better off if he had simply mentioned his employer along with his name and not asked for the link. But even then, I dunno. Now he gets nothing! Haha!

I write this as I also include my banner below. Spamming or promoting? hm......
___________